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November 1999

Monsanto Comments On Court Of Appeal Decision
25/11/99, Monsanto
"We are pleased at today's ruling. Acts of deliberate vandalism achieve nothing and they shouldn't be condoned. By pulling up GM crops, protesters are depriving us all of the answers which companies like Monsanto are being asked to provide."

Response To A Poster Titled "Tolerance Of Transgenic Soybean To Heat Stress", Presented By J. M. Gertz, Jr., W. K. Vencill, And N. S. Hill At The 1999 Brighton Conference
24/11/99, Monsanto
In this paper, the authors suggest that their laboratory research shows Roundup Ready® soybeans may be more susceptible to heat stress than conventional varieties. On millions of acres of Roundup Ready soybeans grown in North and South America over a four-year period, as well as in a variety of research trials, we and others have seen no significant differences in performance of Roundup Ready soybean varieties compared with conventional varieties under a wide range of climatic conditions.

Reports Of Monarch's Death Greatly Exaggerated
22/11/99, The Irish Times
Two things rocked the sometimes hysterical debate on GM foods during 1999 and sent reverberations throughout the worlds of food and science. The first was the persistence of the claims by Dr Arpad Pusztai that GM foods could damage the immune system in mammals. The second was a report by scientists at Cornell University that the monarch, the most distinctive of American butterflies, could be killed by Bt corn. The first research was all but discredited by most scientific opinion. But the monarch study was different.

The Tide Turns Against Greenpeace
17/11/99, Social Issues Research Centre
Greenpeace anti-GM food activists may well have done the organisation's reputation irreparable damage. In place of the pious deference shown by the British Press to the movement's every word on biotechnology, a consensus is now growing that the mindless vandalism of recent weeks has gone too far.

Genetics Can Feed The Starving Millions
12/11/99, University College London
There are those in green and anti-GM movements who think that there is no real food shortage in the world, and that famine and hunger are due to grossly unfair distribution of food, and to war. But the best estimates are that the world's population will increase from 6 billion to 9 billion in the next 25 years, which will require food production almost to double. Arabidopsis could be a very helpful model for modifying plants to increase output, if such techniques are in fact permitted to be used.

Genetic Engineering A Risky Act Of Faith
06/11/99, The London Free Press
For me, as a Christian, there is an overriding reason for continuing with the trials. Every year, millions of people die because carefully nurtured crops have been wiped out by disease, drought or pests. Crops that can better resist these enemies have the potential to transform the lives of whole countries.

A Soya Subject
06/11/99, The Grocer
The biotech companies, like the US regulatory bodies, do not see any issues in the process by which gm crops are created. It's how the crops interact with the environment positively, the companies argue and the inherent qualities of the food products they want to bring to public attention.

Scientific Symposium To Show No Harm To Monarch Butterfly
02/11/99, Biotechnology Industry Organisation
Genetically improved corn poses negligible harm to the Monarch butterfly population, a panel of scientists is expected to conclude at a day-long symposium on new field-conducted research that dispels doubts raised last spring about the safety of the Monarch population.

The Royal Society And GMOs
01/11/99, Royal Society (Statement)
The Society is concerned to make sure so far as possible that, where relevant, public policy is informed by the best available scientific information. As the premier independent scientific body in the UK, it has a responsibility to undertake this role.